


Cleansing of the Heart

by seraphic_gate



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 14:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphic_gate/pseuds/seraphic_gate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikleo is corrupted by malevolence and falls unconscious.  Sorey must take him to a purified spring in order to heal him, while Mikleo fights an inner battle against his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleansing of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> It's SorMik week! This prompt was "Water."

Sorey and Rose walked through the cobbled streets of Lastonbell. The stares they attracted were no longer the amused, curious, or vaguely disapproving looks they’d grown accustomed to.  The people they did see on the road were in such a hurry to get home, his elaborate cloak failed to garner a second look.  Sorey didn’t see any children playing in the yards, and most the shops along the road were closed.  

 

Mikleo walked behind them.  He’d been “out” a lot lately.  Sorey figured the others were bothering him. “Seems like it might rain.”

 

“Don’t need a water seraph to tell us that,” Rose laughed, but it had that tension to it that Sorey had begun to notice whenever Rose needed to lighten the mood.

 

Mikleo huffed and folded his arms across his chest.  “I’m just saying, you might want to get to the inn before it starts.”

 

Sorey wasn’t as concerned about the darkening sky as he was with the feeling of malevolence growing in the town.  With the war mounting, it was palpable.  “We should check in with Sindra.”

 

They headed towards the church.  Sindra wasn’t sitting on the wall outside the grounds as usual.  That by itself was enough to worry him.  They found her sitting inside on the pew closest to the back.  The few humans who had gathered there for protection faced the front, unknowingly with their backs to their seraph keeper.

 

“The people are letting hate grow in their hearts,” she said. “You should hear some of the prayers they are sending up.  I can’t hold back the malevolence if they keep offering me prayers like ‘please kill the Hylandians.’  I’m not sure that I can stay here for much longer if it keeps up.”

 

Sorey suppressed his groan.  They had weathered through a storm of heartache while convincing Sindra to serve at this place, and he hated the idea of her being forced to leave again.  

 

The sound of rain pattered against the church’s roof.  

 

“Welp, I don’t think we’ll be traveling far in these conditions,” Rose said.  As  the only member of their party who wasn’t able to seek refuge inside Sorey, she had a point.

 

Zaveid joined them in physical form so that both he and Mikleo stood beside Sorey along with Rose.  “Let’s turn in.”

 

“Right,” Sorey said.  He wanted to offer Sindra some words of comfort, but he couldn’t find any that she’d believe.

  
\- - -

 

At the inn, Sorey took his seat beside Mikleo in the common room.    Rose was at the bar, Lailah and Edna were resting inside his spirit.  Zaveid had stayed out though, which was beginning to seem a bit strange.  He didn’t sit down at the table.  Instead, he leaned up against one of the building’s columns and pulled his hat down over his face as if he could take a nap there, standing.

 

Sorey didn’t pay too much attention to Zaveid.  Mikleo was worrying him more.  “Why don’t you rest?” he said.  “Me and Rose will be fine for the night.”

 

Mikleo leaned onto the table, hunching his back.  “I want to eat,” he said.  “Order for me, already.”

 

Sorey knew that wasn’t it, but he kind of liked having Mikleo around in the flesh, besides.  “One big beef bourguignon, and two baked tomatoes please!”

 

“The boy is hungry!” The server laughed.  It was nice to see someone in this town smile, and Sorey smiled back.  “Coming right up.”

 

He turned to Mikleo and found a smile creeping onto his face, too.  The little smirk assuaged his worries.  He leaned in, whistling and pretending to look the other way, as he wrapped his arm around Mikleo and poked at his ribs from the opposite side, as if he could trick him into thinking it was someone else and make him look, despite the huge logical gap that only Sorey and Rose could even see him to begin with.  

 

“Way to keep a low profile,” Mikleo said with a sigh, refusing to play along.  He brushed a lock of hair back into place with an elegant flick of his wrist.

 

Sorey pouted.  “Come  _ on _ .”

 

“That’s your best argument?  ‘Come on’?”

 

Sorey didn’t think, and tightened his hold around Mikleo’s waist, hugging him.  He smooshed his cheek against his face.  “I like it when you smile, Mikleo!”

 

“Stop, stop!” Mikleo groaned, blushing from the neck up.  “You’re going to make a scene.”

 

“And we wouldn’t want that,” Zaveid said, and sat down across from them.  

 

Sorey had forgotten that he was there all together.  “Oh, hey, Zaveid.”

 

“I need you two to act normal for a little bit while I scope out the area,” he said.  

 

“Um.”  Sorey looked at Mikleo.  “We are acting normal.”

 

“More normal than that.  Try to look like you’re not nuzzling an invisible person.”

 

Sorey frowned and Mikleo folded his arms with a “hmf.”  

 

They watched Zaveid leave, and Sorey had no time to wonder what that was about before their food arrived.

 

“All right, it looks so good!”  Sorey started stuffing his face almost before the plate had even hit the table.  

 

Mikleo covered his mouth and laughed.

 

“What’s up?” Sorey said, looking at him.  “Something funny?”

 

“You have sauce all over your face and you’ve barely even started.”  He kept laughing, and Sorey couldn’t help grinning, even if the humor was at his expense.

 

He was interrupted as Zaveid snapped back into his vessel.  He hadn’t been gone very long.  “Don’t say anything, Sorey,” he said inside of him.

 

“What?  Why?”

 

“I said--Sorey, just shut up, all right?”

 

Sorey stayed quiet this time.

 

“That woman sitting in the corner of the room.  You know, the one with the red hair?  She’s been watching us.”   

 

Sorey knew better than to turn and look.  He tried to remember the faces he’d seen in the common room when they first entered.  In the corner, there had been a small woman with red hair.  

 

Then Lailah spoke up, joining the invisible conversation.  “Watching Sorey and Rose you mean?”   
  


“No.  She can see us.  Definitely.  I saw her back at the church, too.  She looked up when the boys started playing around, and I thought maybe she just noticed the movement.  But then she looked again when I left the inn.”

 

“How strange,” Lailah said.  Her voice was low and cautious.  “Maybe we should leave.”

 

“The storm is still raging outside,” Sorey said.  “Where else would we stay?”

 

“Hey, Sorey.”  Now it was Edna’s turn to speak.  “Why don’t you ask Rose what she thinks?  It’s handy having an expert in subterfuge around, sometimes.”

 

“Rose?”  Sorey looked up and saw that Rose was still sitting at the bar, drinking.  “All right.”

 

He stood up and walked over to her.  “Rose, did you happen to notice--”

 

Rose whipped her hand back and slapped it over Sorey’s mouth.  “Yeah, I noticed, all right,” she said in a whisper.  Then she put on a fake smile.  “Oh come here, honey!” she shouted, and gave him a big hug.

 

Not that Sorey minded getting hugs from Rose.  Hugs in general were good.  But Rose was kind of scary when she leaned into his ear and started using her dark voice.  “We need to go to our room and lock the place down.”

 

“Oh!”  He clapped his hands on Rose’s shoulders.  “Yeah, um…  darling!  Let’s turn in early!”

 

“You should spank me on the butt.”

 

Sorey and Mikleo both jolted at the suggestion.  

 

“Calm down!  It’s for show.”

 

Sorey groaned.  “How about I just put my arm around you?”

 

“Well fine, if you wanna look like my brother.”

 

Sorey laughed awkwardly.  “I think that’s good enough for now.”  

 

\- - -

 

In their room, Rose reinforced the window with some rope and tied some silverware to it, so that if it was broken into during the night, it would make a loud noise.  It was still raining and booming with thunder outside, so for someone to enter that way would have been a feat.

 

Sorey sat on one of the two beds with Mikleo beside him, watching.  He wondered if he could learn some cool assassin tricks from watching Rose.  That would be really useful, just as long as they weren’t the ones that killed people.

 

“I don’t think that lady watching us was a human,” Rose said.  “I was keeping an eye on her, and nobody else in the tavern seemed to notice that she was there, either.  Nobody served her.”

 

“Was it a seraph?” Mikleo asked.  “I think we would have noticed, had it been a hellion.”

 

“We didn’t notice Maltran,” Sorey sighed.  “We can’t take any chances.”

 

Zaveid materialized and joined Rose by the window.  “I’ll stay up and read the wind.  I’ll know if anyone suspicious comes around.  You guys get some rest.”

 

“All right,” Mikleo said.  “Get in bed, Sorey.”

 

Sorey grabbed his wrist before he could leave the side of his bed.  “I need to talk to you, though.”

 

“Sorey,” Mikleo sighed.  “There’s obviously no way you can do that without everyone hearing.”

 

Edna snorted from inside his head.  “Oh, is it a private conversation?  Would you like us to leave you two alone?”

 

Sorey missed the sarcasm in her voice all together.  “Yes, I would like that!”

 

Rose groaned.  “Oh Sorey.”  Then she hopped up from where she had been leaning against the window and fell into her bed, exhausted.  “We’re on lock down.  Do you know what lock down means?  You can’t leave!  Nobody can leave!  If you have something to say to Mikleo, you can say it in front of all of us.”

 

“Oh, nevermind then,” Sorey said, and kicked his shoes off.  He laid his cloak and belts against a nearby chair and got into his own bed.  “Good night, Mikleo.”

 

Mikleo got up and sat in a chair near the window.  “Good night.”

 

“Aren’t you going to come inside and get some rest?”

 

Mikleo shook his head.  “I’m fine here.  I like to watch the rain fall.”

  
  
\- - -

 

The next day, the rain had stopped, but the sun was still hidden behind a thick layer of grey cloud.  Sorey frowned as his boots sank into the mud still piled up on the roads.  He looked up to Mikleo beside him.  Rain never bothered him much, but something was.  He hadn’t returned to his vessel all night.

 

The seraphim appeared in front of him--Lailah, Edna and Zaveid.  “We’re going ahead,” Edna said.  “Heh.  We need to uh.  Check the road for danger or something, yeah.  Sure.”

 

“Oh yes!”  Lailah laughed.  “It could be too dangerous, so we should clear the way.  Won’t you come with us, Rose?”

 

“Yeah,” Rose said, shrugging.  “There could be all kinds of bandits and hellions and people who smell bad up there!”

 

Mikleo’s expression was so  not unamused, Sorey had to chuckle a little.  “Finally,” he said.  “I need to ask you something.”

 

“What is it,” Mikleo groaned.  “Let’s get this over with so that they can stop teasing us.”

 

“Are you okay?”  Sorey bounced on his heels, waiting for an answer.

 

“Am I okay?  That’s the big question you just had to ask?”

 

“I figured you wouldn’t tell me the truth if the others were around.”

 

Mikleo looked away.  “Do I seem ill, or something?”

 

“A little under the weather, maybe.”

 

“Well, it is stormy.”

 

“That’s not what I meant.”

 

Mikleo sighed and shook his head.  “I’ve been feeling a little unwell since we entered the town.  It’s hard to imagine that we could fight our way through domains of all sorts, but the malevolence of humans is what gets to me.”

 

“Lailah said water was delicate,” Sorey said.  “Maybe you’re the first of the four of you to feel the effects.”

 

“Psh!”  Mikleo folded his arms tightly across himself.  “I’m not delicate, it’s just a little bit dense in town, that’s all!”

 

Sorey opened his mouth to tease him more, but before he could say anything, they heard another voice from behind them.

 

“You think that’s the reason?”  The woman said.  Her voice was flat and passionless.  

 

Sorey turned, ready to go for his sword if he needed to.  First, he hoped to learn more about who this woman was.  “So you really were watching us.”

 

She was red-haired like Zaveid had said, but something else about her seemed familiar.  He couldn’t place it, until he felt himself getting light-headed.  The muddy ground and grey skies began to shimmer in his vision.  “Mikleo?”  But when he looked, Mikleo wasn’t there.

 

\- - -

 

Mikleo felt the illusion fall over them and called his staff and held it ready.  “Should have known it was her,” he said.  “She can look like anyone she wants to.  Come on Sorey, let’s armatize and break through.  Once we’ve regrouped with the others, we can--”  

 

But Sorey was looking around himself, confused.

 

“Sorey?”  He didn’t respond at all.  He glared back at Symonne, who then dropped the pretense and appeared in her true form--short, pale, and black-haired.   Dark, listless eyes stared back at him.  He hissed.  “What did you do to him?”

 

“Malevolence has sort a magnetic quality, you see,” she said, lazily spinning her wand back and forth.  “And seraphim with darkness in their hearts are like whirlpools, sucking it all into one point.  So if I just give you a little nudge in an area like this, well…”

 

Mikleo reached out for Sorey, but his hand passed through his shoulder.  He looked at his hand, then back to Symonne. “You’re not strong enough to block Sorey’s resonance.  Only Heldalf was able to do that.  This is an illusion, isn’t it?”

 

“Maybe it is,” she said.  “Doesn’t change the fact.  All you need is a little seed of doubt in that tiny, forlorn heart of yours. I mean, that’s what happened to your friend.”

 

He shuddered and his mind went black at her audacity, to mention  _ him _ here.  “Dezel  _ was _ my friend, and you--!”  He jutted his staff forward, but instead of striking her body, there was only smoke and swirling light there.  

 

She reappeared behind him, chuckling.  “You want to go with anger and revenge?  That’ll make it even easier.”

 

Mikleo felt a pang in his heart, the same as when they’d faced Heldalf, like he was on the floor of the ocean being crushed by its pressure.  “Whatever you’re doing--”

 

Symonne laughed.  It was the only time she showed any sort of interest at all.  “Are you sure it’s me doing that?”  

 

Mikleo had been feeling sick for a while now.  He’d been doing his best to hide it from Sorey.  Staying out of his spiritual space kept it out of everyone’s sight, but Mikleo knew it was there.  

 

“Hm.” Symonne watched Sorey groping around, unable to see her or Mikleo.  She tilted her head.  “I thought he’d be more upset.  I mean, I’ve been watching you for a while now, and you two seem pretty close.  At least closer than he is to that cat-faced human girl.  So I thought if I messed with you, he’d crack.  But look at him.”  She gestures to Sorey and scoffs.  “I’m not even blocking your resonance, it’s just an illusion.  He’s not even calling for you.  All he has to do is say your name and he’s not.”  She shrugged.  “Guess I had it wrong.”

 

Mikleo felt like he was sinking farther, even farther than the depths of the ocean.  Beneath the earth maybe, into the underworld.  

  
  
\- - -

 

Sorey knelt beside Mikleo and clutched him to his chest.  “Mikleo wake up!” he shouted.  “Mikleo!  Mikleo!  Luzrov Rulay!  Mikleo!”

 

But Mikleo wouldn’t open his eyes.  The woman from before, who he suspected was Symonne, was gone.  Calling Mikleo’s true name yielded nothing.

 

Lailah came back to him first, and materialized by his side.  “What happened?  Edna?  Zaveid?”

 

“We’re both here,” Zaveid said, appearing by her side.  Edna, too.  “What happened to him?”

 

“Damn it!” Rose cried out, having to run all the way back to Sorey on foot.  “All three of you can’t just bail on me like tha--ah!”  She spotted Mikleo lying unconscious in Sorey’s arms.  “What happened!  We were only gone for a few minutes!”

 

“I think it was Symmone,” Sorey said, still shaking Mikleo by his shoulders.  “For a second I couldn’t see him, and I thought it was my resonance again.  But then I found him on the ground passed out like this.  He’s out cold, I can’t wake him up no matter what I try!”  He looked up to Lailah.  “Please, you have to help!”

 

Lailah pressed her eyes shut and wrung her hands.  “Symonne isn’t able to do much on her own,” she said.  “Perhaps she showed Mikleo something that touched the malevolence growing in his heart.”

 

“Malevolence?”  Sorey shook his head.  “No way.  Not Mikleo.”

 

“I’ll look out and make sure she’s not still around,” Zaveid said, and leaped in one jump to the top of a nearby building.  

 

Edna sighed and gripped her hands tightly on her umbrella stabbing into the ground.  “Don’t do this, Meebo.”

 

Lailah looked away.  Sorey knew better than to ask her directly.  He addressed Edna instead.  “Do you know something?” 

 

“He’s corrupted,” Edna said.  “I mean, just a little bit.”

 

Of course, Edna had seen the beginning stages before hadn’t she?  He bit his lip and held Mikleo close.  He couldn’t keep his promise to return Eizen to normal, and now Mikleo was undergoing that process in front of her.   No, he would not let that happen.  “What can we do?”

 

“Well,” Edna said.  She tried to keep her voice level and unaffected, but that only made her cold delivery even more unsettling.  “Usually it takes a long time for a seraph to go full dragon.  First they get a little unstable.  Their eyes darken and the skin starts to scale up.  They turn into little monsters first, like Uno and Rohan did.  Mikleo has been acting weird lately, but I thought it was just because…”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because he’s having to share you with us.”

 

Sorey didn’t understand what she was saying.  “You thought he was upset about something, but that’s not it?”

 

“That’s not all of it, anyway.”

 

“Sorey,” Lailah said, speaking up.  “A seraphim can harbor negative feelings and ill will in their hearts without knowing it.”

 

“Like Dezel,” Rose said.  “When he thought his family would disband.”

 

“Yes,” Lailah went on, carefully.  “And because we exude our blessings onto the land, onto our vessels…”

 

Sorey understood.  “If Mikleo became tainted, it would affect me, because I am his vessel.”

 

“Yes,” she answered.  “And all of us who share you as our vessel.”  

 

“That’s why he didn’t want to come inside when I asked.  He knew there was some malevolence in him, and he was protecting me?”

 

“Maybe that’s why Meebo is taking a nap,” Edna said.  “He was afraid of what would happen.  Or he just got lost in there.  Who knows.”

 

Sorey lifted Mikleo up into his arms, the tails of his split cape trailing below.  “Mikleo wouldn’t just quit on me.”

 

Zaveid bounded down again, landing on the road beside Sorey in a  _ woosh _ of wind.  He stood up straight.  “No sign of her,” he said.  “Looks like Mikleo was her objective after all.”

 

“I’ll take him back to the inn,” Sorey said, examining Mikleo’s face.  He didn’t seem to be in any pain, and he was breathing steadily.  

 

“No,” Edna said, lifting her umbrella back onto her shoulder.  “We need to make for the mountains.”

 

Lailah perked up at that.  “Edna, do you know something that will help?”

 

“Up in the mountains there’s a spring,” she grumbled.  “I never hung out there because water is stupid anyway.  But it’s pure.  If humans have ever touched it, then it hasn’t been for a long time.”

 

“You suppose it will have the same effect as the water that Uno uses as his vessel?” Lailah asked.  Her eyes brightened up and she clapped her hands together.  “So it could absorb the malevolence from Mikleo!”

 

“If there’s even a chance, I’ll go,” Sorey said.  “Let’s head there right now.”

 

Zaveid clapped him on the back.  “To the north!”

 

\- - -

 

Mikleo watched Sorey carry Rose on his back all the way to the Scattered Bones’s hideout.  He knew he didn’t need to keep waving his arms frantically and shouting.  Sorey couldn’t hear him anyway.  Couldn’t  _ perceive _ him.  Mikleo could feel that he couldn’t, but he still did everything he could to try and get his attention.

 

But he was lucid in the dream.  He knew what would happen as the night waned on and morning came.  Sorey would wake up, and after his restful sleep, he’d be able to perceive him again.

 

“This is stupid,” he said. “If you’re trying to make me feel bad, you’re not doing a very good job of it.”  But Ssymonne wasn’t there any longer.  This was a dream of his own making, and based on his greatest fear.

 

When Sorey woke up that morning at the hideout of the Scattered Bones, he didn’t even so much as look around himself.  He didn’t reach out instinctively to find Mikleo.  He didn’t shake as panic set in when he wasn’t there.

 

He got up, yawned, washed up, and went to scrounge up something to eat.

 

“S-Ssorey!” Mikleo followed him.  Sorey never turned his head up, never even sensed him.

 

He knew it wasn’t real, that it hadn’t happened.  But it felt that way, and he couldn’t shake out of it.  He couldn’t grasp reality even as the passage of time melted away underneath him, and he watched Sorey grow old, telling his children about how he’d once spoken to the seraphim long ago, when he was young. 

 

\- - -

 

The ground was still wet by the time they made camp that evening.  Sorey laid Mikleo’s unconscious body across his cloak so that he wouldn’t be wet or cold.  With nothing to lie on, he himself leaned against a tree.  

 

His sleep was restless.  He woke up every hour or so despite his exhaustion and bent over to touch Mikleo, to pat his cheeks, hoping he would wake up and it would all have been nothing more than a long nap.  But, to no avail.

 

When he woke, Rose woke, because she had those assassin’s reflexes.  “What if I carry him for you tomorrow,” she said, throwing Sorey one of her water pouches.  Except it wasn’t water in there when he popped it open, it was some kind of liquor.  “I was hiding that from Zaveid and saving it for a special occasion, but take a sip and get some sleep.”

 

That sounded like a woefully bad idea to Sorey.  He’d never drank alcohol before.  He took a sip just to be thankful, but it burned his throat and he coughed.  “It’s great,” he rasped out.  

 

Rose laughed.  “Let someone else do the work tomorrow.  It ain’t like Mikleo’s heavy or anything.”

 

“That’s true,” Sorey said.

 

Rose rolled over with a groan.  “Oh, just lay down with him.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“If you don’t do it, I’m gonna.  He’s gonna get cold otherwise, right?”

 

Sorey shook his head.  Not that Mikleo got cold, but it did seem silly not to.  Mikleo would never have minded.  They slept side by side all the time before Mikleo became a sub-lord.

 

He tossed Rose’s awful concoction back to her and laid down beside Mikleo on the shepherd’s cloak.  Mikleo laid on his back, and Sorey turned on his side to face him.  “Good night, Mikleo,” he whispered, while brushing the locks of hair out of his face.

 

\- - -




Mikleo walked the winding streets and back alleys of Ladylake, Marlind, Lastonbell, and Pendrago.  No one looked at him.  No one knew he was there.

 

_ This is a dream _ , he knew.  But it wasn’t a fantasy.  

 

A husband and wife watched their children play in a yard.  A little girl fed cream to a cat.  An old woman carried a bucket of water.  It had been a pretty mundane dream so far.

 

Maybe that’s why it was so terrifying.  Sorey wasn’t in it, and life went on.  The humans didn’t notice, and the seraphim didn’t care.

 

And Mikleo wouldn’t die.  He’d just keep walking.  On and on.  As the seasons changed and empires fell and new one took their place.  Taller, expanding over the hills, and when they grew too large, burning, rampant death.  Then life again.  Like everything.  The rhythm of it, imperceptible to humans living their short lives, pounded in his ears.

 

He could wake up, but he would not.

 

\- - -

 

Sorey laughed a little, the only laugh he’d had in a few days.  Mikleo was drooling on Rose’s shoulder.

 

Rose groaned.  “I how he’s a water seraph, but does that mean he’s got to have all these extra fluids?”

 

Sorey wiped Mikleo’s mouth with his own sleeve, then his nose.  “His hair is looking pretty messy, too.”

 

“We don’t have time to comb it for him,” Rose said.  “Just…  don’t tell him.  When he wakes up.”

 

“When he wakes up.”

 

They both looked up at the mountain in front of them.  A less inviting side of Rayfalke, even than the one they’d originally climbed it from.  More forrested and green at least, but the cliff shot almost straight up from the ground.

 

“This is gonna be interesting,” Rose said.

 

Sorey tied a rope around her waist and then around his.  “Fortunately, you are in the presence of a ruins-exploring expert!”  He tied Mikleo’s waist to Rose’s then, and made sure his head was secure too, so that he wouldn’t be injured if he fell.  “You’ve got Mikleo, I’ve got you both.”

 

“I can’t believe you’re trusting me with your dearest,” Rose laughed.  

 

Sorey didn’t even bat an eye at the term.  “If you fall, I’ll hold you both up.”  Mikleo wouldn’t be there to break their landing with his water artes this time.  He swung the grappling hook in his hand and lodged it onto the next bit of flat ground high above them.  “Up we go.”

 

\- - -

 

Sorey was in the dream, this time.  Although, it wasn’t his Sorey. This Sorey was clad in black and gold and his eyes gleamed with a sinister awareness.

 

“You could have this, too,” he said, from a throne littered with the bones of humans and dragons alike.  He extended his hand.  “A world with just you and I in it.  And I would never die.”

 

Mikleo watched the shadows dance around him, painting the white bones with deep purple.  “At the cost of everything else.” 

 

“But everything else doesn’t  _ matter _ .”  Sorey smiled, but it was a vulgar kind of grin that would never be found on his pure-hearted Sorey’s face.   “And I’d tell you those words you want to hear.”

 

“I think I’d rather walk the world alone until the sun dies and the universe goes still than see my Sorey become what you are.”

 

“I love you.”

 

Mikleo covered his ears.  “No, I hate this.  I hate this, Sorey.”

 

\- - -

 

“I really hate this.”

 

Rose was doubled over, hands on her knees, panting, with Mmikleo flopping around on her back.

 

“I swear if any of you ever passes out again, I’m leaving you right where you are.”

 

“Give him to me,” Sorey said.  “It’s my turn to carry him.”

 

Sorey didn’t carry Mikleo on his back.  Maybe it wasn’t very strategic, since he had to use both hands to hold him, and that left him unable to grip his sword.  But he wanted to carry Mikleo in front of him with his head resting on his shoulder.  He seemed more comfortable that way.

 

Edna spoke from inside Sorey.  “I think it’s just ahead.”

 

Sorey looked and saw that this part of the mountain had reached a plateau, and that there were trees and flowers growing all over.  In the distance a waterfall poured from higher up the mountain into a great pool.  There were ruins, monolithic white columns, stretching up from its depths.

 

“Humans must have built a shrine here ages ago,” Sorey said in awe.  “Mikleo--”  He said his name out of habit before he remembered that Mikleo was unconscious.  

 

“Looks like it’s still a few miles away,” Rose groaned.  “Why don’t we rest here for a minute before we close the rest of the distance?”

 

Sorey wanted to go there right at that moment.  He wanted Mikleo to open his eyes again.  He wanted to hear whatever theory Mikleo had about the white spired sticking up from the water and argue with him like they always did.

 

“We haven’t eaten in a while,” Rose said.  “I’ll catch something and bring it back.”

  
  
  


Zaveid, Edna, and Lailah appeared.  Lailah cleared her throat.  “It’ll go more quickly if everyone helps,” she said.  “Particularly you, Zaveid.”

 

“Why single me out like I’m lazy or something?”

 

Sorey laughed.  “Thanks,” he said.  “I better stay here and watch Mikleo.”

 

They headed out, and he was alone with Mikleo again for the first time since that morning when he’d fallen unconscious.  He set Mikleo down against a rock and then threw his cloak around him.  He sat next to him and let Mikleo’s head rest on his shoulder so that it wasn’t against the hard stone.  Around them were all sorts of trees and butterflies and other wonderful sights that he wanted to share.

 

“I know you can’t hear it, but I’m going to talk to you anyway.”  Sorey stretched his arms.  It was a good idea to rest after all.  The climb had taken a lot out of them. He needed to recover his strength and eat.   “I wonder if this place was once a hidden sanctuary, like Elysia.  I wonder if humans and seraphim just like us would have lived here together.”

 

It was strange not hearing Mikleo’s smug retorts.  

 

“I’ve been worried about you, you know?”  He whispered, as if the others might hear him, even though they’d made up excuses to be away again.  “I’ve been worried since we were very little.  That day you told me your true name.  Do you remember that?   _ Luzrov Rulay. _  The enforcer, Mikleo.  You liked it because it sounded so tough.  But I always wondered what it meant.”

 

A cool wind blew through the ridge, rustling the trees and disturbing a flock of white birds that reminded him of home. 

 

“When I became the shepherd, I got so worried.  Because what if your name meant that it was your destiny to enforce the shepherd’s will?  That you were meant to do it from the start.  Your existence is so much more than just that.  I didn’t want you to be my sub lord.”

 

He felt Mikleo slipping and put his arm around his waist to hold him tighter.  

 

“But I’m so stupid.  It’s just like you said.  I was making everything about me.  It’s not  _ Sorey’s Enforcer _ , after all.”  He sighed.  “You’ll be here long after I’m gone.  You’ll live such a long life, and you’ll do so many amazing things after I’m gone.  This name you were given, I think it means a lot more than that.  It means you have the gift to enforce the will of anyone you believe in, including yourself.  And I’m just lucky I got to be that person, for as long as I’m alive.”

 

He lifted Mikleo up and held him in his lap, feeling for his pulse to make sure it was there, and making sure he could hear his heartbeat and feel his slow, steady breath.       

 

“Don’t leave me early,” he said, squeezing him.  “Don’t take away another day that we have together, they’re so short already.”

 

\- - -

 

“Wake up, sleeping princess!”

 

Mikleo found himself in a memory this time.  Now here, here was a place he would like to stay.  The fields of Elysia with Sorey, when they were small children.  Sorey looming over him, book in his hand.  Too big for him.  Too heavy.

 

Mikleo laid in a patch of flowers pretending to sleep.  He felt Sorey’s warm lips against his forehead and opened his eyes.  “Ew, you weren’t supposed to really do it!”

 

“No?”

 

“No!”

 

Sorey pondered that for a moment, plopping onto the ground, flipping the book open.  “In this book, the prince has to kiss the sleeping princess to break the evil spell.”

 

“Why do I have to be the princess?  I’m a boy!”

 

“There’s not boy princesses?”

 

“No!”

 

Sorey pontificated. “Well that just does not stand to reason, Mikleo.” ‘Stand to reason’ being a phrase he’d copied from one of the elders’ overheard conversations.   “Because the southern humans in the age of gods were a mattery… mattery harcel..”

 

“Matriarchal.”

 

“A matriarchal society!  With a queen, you know.  So the princesses should have been boys and the princes should have been girls.”

 

“That’s  _ so _ not how it works.”  Mikleo sighed.  “Plus, that makes you the girl.”

 

“So?”

 

Mikleo’s smaller self was frustrated and wanted nothing more than to grow up, to be big and tall.  But now that he was grown, he wished could stay there forever.  Wrapped up in the warmth of that sweet bubbly child, not a single care or responsibility in the entire world.

 

\- - -

 

They reached the spring late that afternoon.  Sorey’s arms were sore from carrying Mikleo, but he refused Rose’s offer to help this time.  Zaveid and even Lailah offered.  Edna said she’d pop him right into the water with a rock, but she was joking.  He hoped she was joking.  He wanted to carry Mikleo himself.

 

The waterfall and the lake it poured into were much larger than it had looked from far away.  It could encompass the entire city of Ladylake, Sorey thought.  Aside from the point where the waterfall poured into the basin at the far end, the pool was smooth and still like a mirror’s surface.  Blue and full of clouds, like a second sky.

 

“There’s something at the center,” Rose said.

 

“It used to be a shrine,” Edna answered.  “That’s where the purification will be most effective.  I hope you can swim, Sorey.”

 

Sorey choked, realizing he had no idea how to.  He looked into the clear water for any other way to get out there and as a cloud rolled over the sun and killed the glare of the sky against the water, he could see straight through it, all the way to the bottom.  Fish swam through what were once corridors walked by people like Sorey. 

 

“That’s deep,” he said, feeling a bit of sweat on the back of his neck.

 

Edna faked a somber tone.  “Here lies Sorey, we barely knew him.”

 

“No, no!  Look!”  Sorey’s eyes lit up as he saw it.  A stone column that had fallen on its side and rest just below the surface of the water.  “I can walk across on that!”

 

“Uh,” Rose was making a face like she was trying not to laugh.  “Good luck, buddy.  That looks pretty tricky.”

 

“I can do it!”  Sorey gripped Mikleo tight.  “But maybe I should undress Mikleo from these belts and things if he’s going to be purified.  They’re awfully heavy.”

 

Edna snorted a laugh through her nose.  “You’re going to just carry him out there naked, then?”

 

“Ah!”  Sorey blushed at the thought.  “No-no, we just need something pure and loose, right?  Please turn around, girls!  And Zaveid, too.”

 

“Why me?  I’m one of the guys!”

 

“Just do it!” Edna hit him with her umbrella, and they all turned around.

 

Sorey disrobed Mikleo very carefully, working from behind to protect his modesty.  This wasn’t like the sauna.  He was sure Mikleo would be quite embarrassed if he knew.  He placed his shoes up on a rock where they wouldn’t get dirty or wet, then folding his clothes carefully over them.  Then he whipped the shepherd’s cloak off his shoulders and wrapped Mikleo’s body in it, lifting him up into his arms again. 

 

“Okay, I’m ready to go,” he said.  “Wish me luck!”

 

“Good luck,” Rose said.

 

“Yeah.”  Edna looked concerned, which was never a good sign.

 

Holding Mikleo in his arms, he looked up at the sky.  “I will return, with Mikleo!”

 

He turned and stepped onto the pure white stone column.  He realized almost immediately he should have taken his shoes off before he started.  In the water they were heavy and slippery.  But, no turning back now!

 

About half way across, he slipped and began to reel.  He could hear his friends shouting at him from the shore and threatening to come in after him.  Did Rose know how to swim?  Did any of them?  He wasn’t going to think about that.  “I’m fine!” he shouted back.  

 

After quite a few death-defying slip-ups, he finally made it to the structure at the middle of the lake.  He gasped in awe at the intricate markings that were not visible from so far away.  And how it was built so long ago, most of it was now underwater.  He supposed he was on the roof of the white building, and he was up to his knees in water.  

 

He sighed.  Finally Mikleo was in a place where he could be healed.

 

He slowly lowered him into the water.  It was cool and so clear, glistening under the sunlight.  “Come on, Mikleo,” he whispered to him.  “Time to wake up now.”

 

Mikleo didn’t stir.  Sorey worked the water into his hair.  Its silken silver flowed under the water’s surface like one of those sparkling fish.  He cupped his hand and poured water gently over Mikleo’s hairline, washing it over his eyes, careful not to drip any into his nose or his mouth.  Beads of the pure water clung to his eyelashes, but his eyes did not open.

 

Again, he  poured the water over his face.  He took the edge of one of his cloak’s tails and soaked up the water with it to wipe the sweat and grime away, leaving his skin pure and sparkling as the fresh water.

 

Still nothing.  He clutched Mikleo to him, shaking.   _ Wake up.   _ “Wake up, Mikleo.  Wake up, please.”

 

His mind raced.  What if Mikleo never woke up?  What if he slept for years?  What if he turned into a dragon like Eizen?  No, no, no.  There had to be something.  Some way.

 

It dawned on him.  The surface was easily disturbed by light and wind.  The lake’s purity would be greater the farther down it went.  In the depths of the water, Mikleo’s senses would be dampened, just like  when he covered his eyes and ears and held his breath.  

 

But he couldn’t.  He couldn’t just  _ drop _ Mikleo down there, and hope for the best.  “I know you will say I’m being stupid,” Sorey said, and lifted Mikleo out of the water.  He stood at the edge of what once was the building’s roof and looked down.  “But, I’m going with you.  We’re going together.”

 

Cries of his friends came from the edge of the lake as he walked straight off the edge, and sank to the bottom.

 

\- - -

 

He opened his eyes under the pressure of water.  

 

This was a dream Mikleo had dreamed so many times.  He loved it even more than sweet childhood memories.  He was deep, deep underwater.  So far below that even the light could hardly reach him.  

 

And Sorey was there.  Floating with him.  Smiling that big smile.  Under the blue water, far away from duty or malevolence.  Just them in this dark, still world.  

 

Sorey looked at him with so much relief in his eyes, so much adoration, remnants of the sun above shining behind him, framing his face in light.  He cupped Mikleo’s face in his hands, and Mikleo could almost believe that it was real.

 

It was only a dream.  

 

Mikleo pulled Sorey closed to him and kissed him.  The way he’d always wanted to, and the way he knew he never would.  Soft, tender.  Sorey’s eyes opened wide at first, then he  let himself sink into it, and they were drifting down together in each other’s embrace.

 

But then, Sorey began to cough and choke.  Sorey couldn’t breathe.  Sorey couldn’t  _ swim _ .  He flailed his arms and pointed his fingers towards the surface of the water.  

 

It wasn’t a dream.  He was really there.  Sorey was there with him.  And Sorey was going to drown his stupid self.

 

Mikleo hooked his arm around Sorey’s waist and propelled them with all the control over his element that he could muster.  In seconds, they broke the surface of the water and were gasping for breath in the bright sunlight.

 

“Aha, this swimming thing isn’t so tough!”  Sorey said through chokes and snorts.  

 

“I’m using the water to keep you afloat, you idiot.”

 

“Oh!”  Sorey stopped waving his arms around himself in a motion that only mimicked actual swimming, and instead put them tightly around Mikleo.  “You’re awake.  You’re really awake!”

 

“Guh!”  Mikleo could barely concentrate on keeping them above water if Sorey was hugging him like that.  He looked around.  They were at the center of some lake, a place he’d never seen before.  “What happened?”

 

“You don’t remember anything?”  He squeezed Mikleo tighter.  “I was afraid I might never see you again.  Awake, anyway.”

 

Mikleo looked down at himself.  “What am I wearing?”

 

“My cloak!”

 

“And nothing else?”

 

“It’s a long story, Mikleo.”  Sorey moved his arms from Mikleo’s neck to his waist and held him tight to him, so that his chin rest on Sorey’s shoulder.  “I’m so glad.  Mikleo.  I was so afraid.  Never do something like that again.  Never, okay?”

 

“Sorey,” Mikleo rubbed Sorey’s back in return.  “Are you crying?”

 

“I’m happy,” he said.  “I’m really happy!” 

 

“I’m sorry I worried you,” Mikleo said, holding him.  “I vaguely remember…  I felt malevolence rising up in me, and then it was dark…  and I dreamed for a long time.”

 

“Nice dreams, or scary dreams?”

 

“A little of both.”

 

“Was I in them?”

 

“Some of them.”

 

“You have to tell me about them!”

 

Mikleo pulled away, just far enough that he could see Sorey’s face, and wipe both the water and the tears out of his eyes.  His hair was soaked and stuck to his face.  He’d lost his shoes somewhere at the bottom of the lake.  But he was smiling at Mikleo the way he did when he found unexplored ruins.

 

“So you jumped into the lake,” Mikleo said.

 

“Right!”

 

“Even though you can’t swim.”

 

“Um…  right.”

 

“How were you going to get back out?”

 

“I didn’t worry about that part because I knew you’d wake up.”  Sorey hugged him again.  “I knew, and I was right.”

 

“I can’t argue with that,” Mikleo said.  “But still…  you’re so reckless, Sorey.”

 

Mikleo had studied their surroundings long enough to notice the structure behind them, and  used the water to push them to it.  Once they reached it’s edge, he found a ledge that stuck up over the water’s surface.  Sorey climbed up onto it first, then pulled Mikleo up after him.

 

They sat there, with their legs dangling in the water, catching their breath and letting themselves process what had happened.

 

“How did the malevolence get to you?” Sorey asked, finally.  “That’s what I can’t figure out.  You’re so strong and pure, all the way through.”

 

“You think too highly of me,” Mikleo said.  “I get jealous, bitter, hopeless, lost…  just like anybody else.  I guess I’ve been trying so hard to support you.  To hold you up, and absorb everything that might taint you.  I wanted to be your shield.  You know.  Your enforcer, like my true name.”

 

“You’re not my shield, Mikleo.  Or my sword, or my umbrella, or my uh… my shoes?”

 

“Kinda losing the metaphor here, Sorey.”

 

“Shut up!  I mean.  You’re not a thing I use.  You’re my…  You’re my home.”

 

Mikleo looked up at him.  His eyes reflected all the colors of the sunset.  

 

Sorey waved his hands energetically.  “And you’re my heart!”

 

Mikleo groaned.  “I should have kept sleeping…”

 

“Nope!”  Sorey went in for the attack, tickling Mikleo’s sides.  This time he didn’t have much to protect him, since Sorey’s cloak was open on the sides.  “No more sleep for you!  Not for a whole week!”

 

“I can’t stay up for a whole week!”  He could.  He was a seraph.  But he didn’t want to.  He wanted to rest nice and peaceful with Sorey.

 

Sorey tickled him and Mikleo tried to get him back, and they didn’t stop until they both nearly fell off the edge again, and might have plummeted to the bottom of the lake.

 

Sorey held Mikleo tightly to steady them, then pulled away.  It’s only then Mikleo realized how much of his skin was bare. And how Sorey was looking at him.

 

“Mikleo.”  He paused.  “Can I kiss you again?”

 

“A-again?” Mikleo sputtered and his face turned red.  “We’ve never kissed before!”

 

“You kissed me, under the water.”

 

“No, that was a dream!”

 

“No, it was real.”  Sorey looked away and grinned to himself.  “Really real.”

 

“Oh no…”  Mikleo covered his face with his hands.  “Sorey, I didn’t mean to.  I mean, I didn’t know what was happening!”

 

“So you don’t want me to?”  He gently moved one of Mikleo’s arms away from his face.  

 

Their friends had either the best or most awful timing, Mikleo would have to think about it and decide later.  They began to shout at them from the shore.  Rose even tried crossing the lake, but she definitely wasn’t wearing the right shoes for it, and slipped and fell in.

 

Unlike Sorey, she could swim, and climbed back onto the structure with the help of Zaveid.  Meanwhile Edna was pushing up stones for her to walk across on easily.

 

Rose balked, soaking wet.  “If you could do that the whole time, why did you make me and Sorey walk across that slippery-ass bridge?”

 

“Because it was really funny.”  

 

Zaveid shrugged.  “Can’t argue with that.”  Then he turned to Lailah.  “My lady, could you use a hand?”

 

Lailah ignored him and bounded across the stones left by Edna.  “Mikleo, oh Mikleo!”  She was the first to reach the platform, and slammed into Mikleo with a big splash.  

 

“Lailah!” he groaned under her weight.  She squeezed him even harder than Sorey had done, he thoughts his ribs might crack.  She was crying.  

 

“Oh Mikleo, I was so worried!  Thank goodness!  It’s a miracle!”

 

“A miracle?”  

 

Sorey splashed in the water as he tried to stand up and slipped.  He elected to remain sitting.  “What do you mean, a miracle?”

 

“Ah… nothing!”  Lailah released Mikleo abrupbtly and cupped her face in her hands, swaying side to side.  “Just that, well…  this lake doesn’t have any purifying powers. It really worked because of Sorey’s heart’s truest prayer.”

 

Sorey and Mikleo stared blankly at her at the same time.  “What?”

 

Edna snorted.  “The water isn’t Mikleo’s vessel,  _ Sorey _ is.  I just told Sorey that stuff so he’d believe it enough to make it work.”

 

Rose leaned against one of the columns, rubbing her shoulders.  “Oh for…  next time could you pick a place closer to the ground?  I carried Mikleo up the whole frigging mountain!”

 

Mikleo hid his face in his hands.  “And Sorey took my clothes off…”

 

Edna smirked.  “That just made it  _ really _ funny.”   
  


Sorey sighed and stood, this time successfully.  “Oh well.”  He turned to Mikleo, and took his hand to help him up.  “Should we all go back to shore?  Now that we’re all together again.”

 

“Yeah,” Mikleo said.  “Sorry to be a burden on everyone.”

 

“Mikleo.”  Sorey looked around at each of his friends and knew that they were thinking the same thing.  “Everyone here loves you.  We’re your family.  You won’t be alone.”

 

Mikleo smiled.  

 

\---

 

Mikleo was dry and clothed, and they’d started their way back down the mountain.  After a few miles walk, everyone had chatted as much as they could about what had gone on, and what they needed to do now.  

 

“Maybe we’ll walk on ahead,” Lailah said, breaking the lingering silence that had settled in.

 

“Yeah,” Rose laughed.  “Gotta clear the path.”

 

Mikleo groaned again.  “Just go if you’re going to go.”

 

Rose, Lailah, Edna, and Zaveid each made some excuse for why they should be somewhere else even though they were in the middle of nowhere.  Sorey grinned.  Their friends really understood them, sometimes.  Even if they got teased about it.

 

“So,” he said.  “Era of the gods, you think?”

 

Mikleo made a “hm” noise and tapped his lip.  “Seems like humans would need help to build something like that.  Although I’ve never seen symbols like that.”

 

“Do you think the seraphim will ever help humans build amazing structures like that again?”

 

Mikleo smiled.  “Of course.  This is just one dark age, after all.”

 

Sorey shielded his eyes with his hand and looked up through the branches at the mid-afternoon sun in the sky.  “I hope I at least get to see you get started.”  Then he looked back.  “But even if I don’t, I know you’re going to do some amazing things, Mikleo.”

 

Sorey’s hand felt for Mikleo’s and squeezed it tight.

 

Mikleo tightened his own hand around his.  He spoke in a deep and breathy tone. “Maybe humans and seraphim weren’t meant to live together.”

 

Sorey’s grip tightened and he blinked at him wide-eyed.  “Huh?  But that’s our dream...” 

 

Mikleo shook his head.  “That’s the thought that let the malevolence in.  You wanted to know, right?”

 

He buried his head in Sorey’s shoulder, hoping not to look at him that way.  He felt his arms wrap around him and hold him tight to his chest.

 

“Humans have a ridiculously short life don’t they?  All things considered.”  Sorey rubbed his hand over Mikleo’s back.  “You’re going to meet so many people, and see so many things.  I really envy you sometimes.  And other times I think…  well, it might get lonely.”

 

“Not like you.  I’ll never meet anyone else like you.” He exhaled a ragged breath. “No one else will be you.”

 

“In that case,” Sorey hugged him tight.  “I’ll just have to make your time with me like a hundred times more amazing than anything else!  We’re gonna go see all the ruins and natural landmarks in this whole world, together!”

 

Mikleo laughed.  He laughed until he was crying, and sobbing, and laughing some more.  Then Sorey kissed him, and there was no longer any doubt that this was the most amazing thing he’d ever do in his long life.

 

\- - -

 

As fate would have it, their time together was even shorter than most humans were given.

 

Mikleo’s hair was long and white as the sparkling columns in the deep mountain spring.  It took a lot of work and combined effort from several seraphim, plus a few hundred humans.  Finally, the ruins weren’t ruins anymore.  The structure was restored to its original form--a shrine of water.  

 

Much older than the trials by far, this shrine was not a test of mettle.  It existed in its purest form to offer humans a place of solace, high and hidden up away from the world.  The shrine had been raised from the dark blue pool to rest once again on the water’s surface.

 

Mikleo turned.  “You didn’t get to see me get started,” he said.  Then he laughed.  “But you got to see me finish.”

 

Sorey wrapped him up in a big hug.  “Even better.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 


End file.
